Complimentary 
NEW SERIES VOL. Ill 
NO. 2 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
BULLETIN 
OF 
POPULAR INFORMATION 
JAMAICA PLAIN, MASS. MAY 8, 1917 
The exceptionally cold and sunless weather of the last week of April 
and of the early days of May has greatly retarded the advance of veg- 
etation, and very few plants are in bloom in the Arboretum; and on 
the 3d of May leaf-buds were still generally closed. An exception, 
however, is found in 
Prinsepia sinensis. The leaves of this Chinese shrub, which are 
among the first in the Arboretum to unfold, are already nearly fully 
grown and the flowers are opening; these are bright yellow, about two- 
thirds of an inch in diameter, and appear in few-flowered clusters in 
the axils of the leaves. This Prinsepia is a tall, vigorous, perfectly 
hardy shrub, with ascending and spreading spiny branches, and is per- 
fectly at home in eastern Massachusetts. It will probably prove here 
to be an excellent and very ornamental hedge plant. Unfortunately, 
the red berry-like fruit is rarely produced here, so that this plant can 
be increased only by cuttings. The largest plant in the Arboretum is 
on the upper side of Hickory Path near Centre Street; a plant is also 
in the Shrub Collection. Another species, Prinsepia uniflora, a native 
also of northern China, is established in the Arboretum; it is a more 
spiny shrub with small white flowers, and as an ornamental plant has 
little to recommend it. 
Corylopsis. A year ago attention was called in one of these Bulle- 
tins to the flowering of some of these plants in the collection of Chin- 
ese shrubs on the southern slope of Bussey Hill. The flower-buds are 
often injured in this climate by spring frosts but last spring they es- 
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